Left I on the News

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Corporate health "care"

Even on Skid Row, where life and dignity are cheap, it was a shocking scene: a paraplegic man "sliding along his bottom using his hands," carrying his meager belongings in a plastic hospital bag he clutched in his teeth.

Police said the man, who was dragging a colostomy bag behind him, had been dumped out on the sidewalk by the driver of a hospital van.

The case comes three months after the city attorney's office filed its first indictment for homeless dumping against Kaiser Permanente Hospital for an incident last year.

City officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping patients and criminals on Skid Row.